Definition
BATA is a Latin abbreviation for *secundum allegata et probata* — meaning "according to the things alleged and proved." It appears as a shorthand citation signal in older legal texts and judicial opinions to denote the principle that courts and juries must decide cases on the basis of what has been formally pleaded and supported by evidence, and nothing beyond. The abbreviation condenses a foundational rule of adjudication: the court's authority to decide is bounded by the allegations placed before it and the proof offered to sustain them.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): BATA — initialism for Bay Area Toll Authority, a California regional transportation agency.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): No entry. The term had no common English meaning in the nineteenth century.
Editorial note: The overlap is purely typographic. A researcher encountering BATA in a legal brief or judicial opinion is almost certainly reading a Latin abbreviation, not a reference to a California transit authority. Context resolves the ambiguity immediately, but the collision is worth flagging for anyone conducting keyword searches across mixed corpora.
Common Confusion
BATA is sometimes misread as a standalone term rather than as an abbreviation. The full phrase it compresses — *secundum allegata et probata* — carries the doctrinal weight; BATA is simply a notational convenience used in older judicial writing and legal scholarship. Researchers unfamiliar with Latin citation conventions may overlook the abbreviation entirely or mistake it for a proper noun. See RELATED TERMS for the full phrase.
Why It Matters in Research
The abbreviation BATA appears almost exclusively in pre-twentieth-century sources. Nineteenth-century American and English judicial opinions, particularly in equity and civil procedure contexts, used *sec. alleg. et prob.*, *sec. al. et prob.*, and BATA interchangeably. A researcher working through older reporters — especially the English term reports or early American federal reporters — may encounter the abbreviation without gloss. It signals that the court is invoking the pleading-proof correspondence rule, not merely making a passing observation about evidence.
The principle itself remains vital in modern procedure, but the abbreviation has fallen out of use. Modern sources render the idea through rules of pleading sufficiency, variance doctrine, and the requirement that jury instructions track the evidence admitted — none of which will use the BATA shorthand. A researcher tracking the doctrinal history of the pleading-proof correspondence rule must therefore translate between the archaic abbreviation and its modern procedural equivalents.
The Burrill citation to Lord Ellenborough (15 East, 81) and to Sumner's Reports (1 Sumner's R. 375) situates the abbreviation firmly in the early nineteenth-century Anglo-American common law tradition. Both are real reporters: *East's Term Reports* covers English King's Bench decisions, and *Sumner's Reports* covers early federal circuit court decisions from New England. A researcher following the doctrinal trail should consult both.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's and Burrill's entries are in agreement on substance and nearly identical in phrasing. Both define BATA as an abbreviation for *secundum allegata et probata* and both cite the same sources — 15 East, 81 and 1 Sumner's R. 375. Burrill adds the full quotation from Lord Ellenborough and an additional citation to 3 Taunt. 30, giving slightly more texture to the rule's English common law grounding.
Neither dictionary elaborates on the procedural consequences of the rule — what happens when a verdict goes beyond the allegations, or when proof fails to match pleading. That doctrinal territory is addressed elsewhere in both dictionaries under entries for variance, pleading, and evidence. The BATA entry in both sources functions as a cross-reference anchor rather than a standalone exposition.
Jurisdictional Note
The principle underlying BATA — that adjudication must be confined to what was alleged and proved — is universal across common law jurisdictions, though its procedural expression varies. English equity and common law courts developed the rule separately; American courts absorbed both streams. Modern civil procedure codes in most U.S. jurisdictions address the pleading-proof relationship through variance and amendment rules rather than through the Latin formulation.